Reports/2012/March

Below is the Wikimedia UK monthly report for March 2012. If you want to keep up with the chapter's activities as they happen, please subscribe to our blog, join our mailing list, and/or follow us on Twitter. To see what we have planned in coming months, please visit our events page. If you have any questions or comments, please drop us a line on this report's talk page.

Program activities

Community

London Meetup

On 11th at Pendrel's Oak.

Liverpool meetup

On 24th at The Richard John Blackler

Education

Bright Club

On the 1st, Mike Peel spoke at Bright Club Manchester on Wikipedia and 'Histories'. Bright Club is a "thinking person's comedy club", combining comedy with scientific public outreach. Mike focused on how Wikipedia articles all have 'View History' pages that show every change made to that article, as well as mentioning the article on Toilet paper orientation, guidelines such as WP:BEANS and WP:DICK, recent Fox News coverage of Wikipedia, and vandalism to biographies of living people.

Geological Society training event

30th March, Burlington House, London.

GLAM

See also the This Month in GLAM UK report for this month.

Hack on the Record

‘Hack on the Record’ at the National Archives (24th-25th)

Coventry History Editathon (31st)

Herbert Art Gallery and Museum, Coventry.

Miscellaneous

Interviews with Jimmy Wales

On 7 March, Jimmy attended the Financial Times Digital Media conference 2012, and gave a number of interviews to the media. Resulting press coverage included:

• #ftmedia12: Jimmy Wales on the power of Wikipedia’s free access ethos, Journalism.co.uk, 7 March
• Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales dislikes Facebook buttons, Financial Times, 7 March
• Wikipedia avoids politics after copyright victory, Reuters, 7 March

MP and House of Commons edits to Wikipedia articles

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism investigated the edits that had been UK Members of Parliament, and the House of Commons, had been making to Wikipedia. WMUK was kept in the loop during this investigation. The resulting news articles included:

• Wikipedia: ‘Bob Crow, The Lord of the Rings and Notable DJs’, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, 9 March
• Who are the Commons moles changing Wikipedia entries?, Independent, 9 March
• MPs Wikipedia pages 'changed from inside Parliament', Telegraph, 9 March
• How MPs are tweaking their Wikipedia pages in bid to hide embarrassing information, Daily Mail, 9 March
• Former Enfield MP Joan Ryan changed Wikipedia page to remove expenses scandal, This Is Local London, 11 March (also Enfield Independent)

Jimmy Wales appointed as adviser to UK government

• Jimmy Wales: Wikipedia chief to advise Whitehall on policy, Telegraph, 12 March
• Wikipedia co-founder asked to advise Whitehall on how to make policy decisions more open, Daily Mail, 12 March
• Wikipedia's Wales to help government engage public in policy, Public Service, 12 March
• Wikipedia's Jimmy Wales becoming adviser to British government, The Verge, 12 March
• Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia Founder: First Sopa Protest, Now Advising Whitehall On Innovation, IBTimes, 12 March
• Jimmy Wales turns Jimmy Whitehall, TechEye, 12 March
• Wikipedia Cofounder Jimmy Wales Now to Advise UK , WebProNews, 12 March
• Wikipedia co-founder to advise No 10, Financial Times, 12 March (Paywall)

Administrative activities

Board meetings

Exec meeting

An in-person executive board meeting took place at the John Rylands Library in Manchester on 3rd March. The meeting covered the Chief Exec report, hiring plans for development and fundraising work, and a whole host of other topics. For more details, please see the meeting minutes. We thank John Rylands for donating the venue for the meeting.

Board meeting

On 27th, by telephone - Agenda

Global movement

Chapters meeting

The Chapters' Conference took place at the annual German Wikimedia Conference in Berlin on 30th March to 1st April. Jon, Roger and Fæ attended.

Office and Staff

The WMUK office on 9 Mar 2012

The single complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority about our fundraising banners, made last month, has been dealt with amicably. The ASA did not believe that we had breached any rules, but they did suggest informally that we update our fundraising pages to reflect that money does go towards Wikimedia UK's outreach activities, as well as technology and staff costs. We agreed completely with their suggestion, and we have already updated our donation pages, and have established a good relationship with the ASA.